To enter a date in Excel, use the “/” or “-” characters. I am using front slash to enter todays date.

To enter a time, you can use the “:” (colon).

You can also enter date and time in a single cell.

Your windows regional settings determine the default date and time format. Various Date and Time formats are covered in this lesson.

Current Date & Time

You may need to quickly enter the current date and time while making an activity log. Or maybe you want that the current date and time in a cell automatically refresh every time the sheet is updated or formulas are recalculated. There are several ways to insert the current date and time in a cell.

In the spreadsheet, select the cell in which you want to insert the current date or time.

Now, to insert the current date, press Ctrl+; (semi-colon).

To insert the current time, press Ctrl+Shift+; (semi-colon).

To insert current date and time in a single cell press Ctrl+; (semi-colon) give a space and then press Ctrl+Shift+; (semi-colon).

These values won't change when the worksheet is recalculated or opened next time and hence its called 'static' value.

Now, a date or time that updates when the worksheet is recalculated or the workbook is opened is considered 'dynamic' instead of static. The most common way to return a dynamic date or time in a cell is by using worksheet functions.